How they used to practice “tolerance” in Woodburn
The column in the student newspaper seemed innocent enough: advocating tolerance for people “different than you.”
But since sophomore Megan Chase’s words appeared January 19 in The Tomahawk, the newspaper at Woodlan Junior-Senior High School, her newspaper adviser has been suspended and is fighting for her job, and charges of censorship and First Amendment violations are clouding this conservative northeastern Indiana community.
At issue is whether Chase’s opinion column advocating tolerance of homosexuals was suitable for a student newspaper distributed to students in grades 7 through 12 and whether newspaper adviser Amy Sorrell followed protocol in allowing the column to be printed.
Media advocates say the debate has deeper ramifications.
Sorrell, the daughter of a newspaper editor, said she thought she knew what was acceptable in the school district where she has taught English for four years.
“I’d still make that same judgment,” she said.
The broader question is that censorship isn’t seated just in the heart of hooded bigots. Fears and foolishness live throughout Middle America. Something as basic as getting along with other human beings is controversial to the chronically ignorant.
The content of the article that the student wrote is of no consequence. I do not believe the First Amendment applies to middle school or high school publications. I think courts have ruled that the content is at the discretion of the school administration.
Hey….what happened? I didn’t have to enter the funky anti-spam code.
Can you spot the clever distortion used here?
Notice, if you will, how the actual topic of the article in question is slyly redefined; the article’s topic is tolerance. The group which the article advocates be tolerated is secondary, in fact almost incidental, but Mr. Melin disingenuously implies that the subject examined in the article is “the broad topic of homosexuality” – not simply victims of unfair discrimination who, in the instant case, identify as homosexual, people that every seventh-grader and up already knows to exist – but the entire phenomenon of same-sex oriented sexuality!
This deliberate deception, of course, is crafted to slip right by the average parent’s bullshit detector, which is hardly a precision instrument to start with.
Referring to the topic as “sensitive material” is an additional sleazy misdirection, to subtly reinforce the fallacious implication that sexuality, not tolerance, is the topic…
I suspect that if these tight-assed clowns would apply half the effort they applied to this exercise in un-American thought control instead into providing an education for their charges, they’d have an award-winning student body.
Whether courts have ruled on the discretionary nature of school publication content or not, what kind of message does it send to children in these schools? And god forbid such a column strike up a meaningful conversation between a child and parent. We sure wouldn’t want parents to have to be involved in the job of raising their children.
#1 – BillM
“The content of the article that the student wrote is of no consequence. I do not believe the First Amendment applies to middle school or high school publications. I think courts have ruled that the content is at the discretion of the school administration.”
I see. So, because the adminstration is not required to exemplify American respect for freedom of the press in the course of preparing future citizens for entry into adult American society, it’s perfectly OK for them to do the exact opposite, right?
Show the kids by example, early in their lives, that this free speech bullshit is just a bunch of meaningless words, just for show. A new trend in relating education to the real world, I suppose, huh?
Well, what where you expecting from the christian states of america?
The next thing you’ll see is banning girls from education and then covering them from head to toe with some blue blankets.
I don’t know what the title of the student’s article was, but I would have suggested “Put Down Your Stones.”
This tiny conservative community, where advocating tolerance is such a hot-button issue, would probably be better off shutting down the school and home-schooling their children instead. For the teacher’s job to be in such jeopardy, there must be too many parents who want a much more tightly controlled educational environment, and young brains are best washed and sanitized at home. Mail, periodicals, and other reading material can all be pre-screened for undesirable ideas and influences, and then properly redacted with a felt marker or razor blade before being given to the child.
Of course, I recognize that the quality of home-schooling is sometimes quite excellent, but one consistently appealing factor is the amount of control that can be maintained.
I am not sure that there is a clear legal sense here that the first amendment does not apply. One could argue that if you put the child into a position where there is an expectation that they have some first amendment freedoms, then they have those freedoms. I know that a real life “editor” is not given complete freedom by the publisher. But a student has no other options or job prospects.
Be that as it may, though, this still stinks. If she were talking about homosexual (or heterosexual) acts, in a graphic way, then I could understand the need for some review. But we are talking about an editorial advocating tolerance of a group of people, whom are known, or at least are designated, by the title homosexual. To fire a teacher, and censor the student for using the commonly accepted name for a group is wrong.
Yes! Tolerance for all!
Let’s start with homosexuals…then wife beaters.. and eventaully we’ll get around to Christians.
“parents who want a much more tightly controlled educational environment, and young brains are best washed and sanitized at home”
#7, Comment by Gary Marks — 4/23/2007 @ 8:53 am
Spot on. Although some would say I didn’t turn out well at all 🙂
#3, “Can you spot the clever distortion used here?”
Comment by Lauren the Ghoti — 4/23/2007 @ 6:54 am
Even a principal can spin? What a jerk. (Now spinning about 78 rpm)
No intelligent life in this district, beam me up, Scotty.
10… “some would say I didn’t turn out well at all :)”
Aw, shucks, BubbaRay — you turned out just fine, and apparently you learned that pondering the existence of any god or other universally pervasive force is best done while looking through a telescope, rather than sitting on a church pew.
Many folks will never learn such an important lesson!
9 – Let’s start with homosexuals…then wife beaters.. and eventaully we’ll get around to Christians.
Troll, troll, troll your boat / stupid up the blog…
#9 – Kevin L
“Tolerance for all!…
…and eventaully we’ll get around to Christians.”
Sure. Just as soon as they start tolerating nonXians…
“There’s a difference between tolerance and agreement.”
Tolerance means to have sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own.
Agreement means harmony of opinion, action, or character.
Yes, I have tolerance for people I don’t agree with. No, I have no right to tolerance from anyone.
I have worked on freedom of speech cases, including some involving schools. The key issue is whether the activity is likely to be disruptive. So, the court will have to decide if the editorial is likely to lead to verbal abuse of some students, fights or even merely continuing distraction from the educational mission. Based on what I’ve read, I don’t think the writing the editorial was disruptive behavior.
#15,
Based on what I’ve read, I don’t think the writing the editorial was disruptive behavior.
Sorry to disagree, but apparently somebuddy out east of me has made it disruptive. Ya gotta love Hoosier logic and religion, they go so well together.
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So they end up firing the teacher. She ends up suing and will win. When the bills are added up, the school district will have spent the equivalent of two or three teachers salaries. All for nothing.
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#3,
While this is one of your better posts and I am on board, I take issue with some of your thoughts. The column wasn’t about tolerance, it was about toleration for homosexuals. We are all in favor of tolerance, some more so. Especially when the tolerance applies to someone else and not them.
#16 – Ralph
“I take issue with some of your thoughts.”
Just some? You’ve got it easy, my man. I mean, crikey,™ I take issue with most of ’em. 😀
“The column wasn’t about tolerance, it was about toleration for homosexuals.”
I’d say the entire issue is a matter of the school admins’ knee-jerk overreaction to what they chose to see the column’s topic as, which was not the thing the author was addressing. Ms Chase wrote a piece about the desirability of extending tolerance to a discriminated-against minority, in this case, gays – if ‘blacks’ or ‘Jews’ is substituted, or an exemplar group isn’t even mentioned, the message remains promotion of tolerance, not specifics about homosex (or the black experience, or Judaism). The admins (deliberately?) chose to see it as a piece about homosexuals, and in typically middle-American homophobic fashion, reacted as we have seen.
Good writing, thanks.